


everything has changed

by alovelylight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Conversations, F/F, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:08:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alovelylight/pseuds/alovelylight
Summary: “Care for a fag?” She used to smoke with Draco by the Great Lake, in his room with the window open, at dingy fast food joints where they weren't Slytherin or popular or pure-blood scions.Granger looked like she was torn between a battle of wills, but giving in eventually won. “Just one, thanks.”-Returning for their last year at Hogwarts after the war, Pansy Parkinson and Hermione Granger stood at the edge of an unlikely friendship.





	everything has changed

“You should eat more, Parkinson.”

Pansy raised an eyebrow as Hermione Granger pushed her plate of roasted potatoes and runny eggs her way, as if it were a peace offering. A sodding poor symbol of compromise, in Pansy’s view – six years of taunting and hair-pulling and slandering from Pansy, and here was Granger giving her some eggs and potatoes as if they were buds.

“Er, thanks,” she muttered, stabbing a potato with her fork, cringing at her lack of eloquence. It was true, though – she had avoided platefuls of food, and now her back felt like a bunch of little rocks.

They were sitting in the Great Hall, which was half-deserted because it was Christmas holidays. She knew this should be a time of merry and cheer, but Pansy found little time for happiness. Renovations of the Hall had restored it to its former elegance, but she did not fool herself into thinking that this place would ever be the same as when she first entered as a starry-eyed and ambitious girl of eleven. Too much of her innocence and arrogant girlhood had died here within these walls.

She and Granger were one of the few in their year level who returned for their eighth year, the latter continuing her stroke of brilliance and the former out of complete ignorance about what else she could do. It had been awfully lonely for her – there was no Daphne listening to Warbeck on the radio, no Millicent leaving a trail of cat furs on Pansy’s miniskirts, no Tracey dreaming upon her book of poetry by the windowsill. Whenever she shot up from her sleep, red-eyed from dreams of throwing killing curses on the Hogwarts grounds, she found that she was alone.

And so was Granger, it seemed. Without a skinny boy with untidy hair or a lanky redhead on either side of her, she looked incomplete. Pansy hadn’t realized how important people were until now – after all, who was she without her gang of sly-eyed Slytherin girls? Who was she without Draco as her partner-in-crime, both of them tossing hurtful delicacies out of their mouths?

“So why are you hanging around here for Christmas?” asked Pansy, as a way to show she wasn’t raising any hackles.

“I’m being paid for organizing and archiving library books by Madame Pince.”

“Sounds like a grand time.” The vulture-like librarian did seem like she always had a soft spot for her, the least likely candidate for paging through a book with greasy fingers.

“What are _you_ doing here, then,” Granger said, observing the other girl as she ate.

“I have no interest in being elsewhere at the moment.” This was true, to an extent – Draco and Astoria were piecing together the first steps of a tentative romance; she didn’t want to be a nuisance by hanging around Malfoy Manor. Meanwhile being back at the Parkinsons’ mansion, with all its reminders of uninhibited decadence and toxic elitism, would only suffocate her.

“Because you have nowhere else to go,” Granger pointed out anyway, apparently not understanding the importance of subtlety. Typical Gryffindor.

“And would _you_ have anywhere else to go, Granger?”

“The Burrow, for one. They all thought I was mad for choosing to spend Christmas without them. Or my parents’ new house, but they’re still not done packing.”

“Well, you’re here with me now,” Pansy smirked. “Your old Slytherin rival, fancy that.”

“Exemplary self-awareness,” Granger deadpanned. “I’ve been thinking, Parkinson – if Harry had found it in himself to find peace with Malfoy, then I ought to do the same with you. It only makes sense. Yes, you were a-a _bitch_ –” at this Pansy brought herself to look at her “– but you were also scared, and you probably didn’t know better. I mean, you weren’t born with discriminatory, archaic ideas ingrained into your head –”

“I got the idea, Granger,” she put her hand up.

The other girl scowled, reminding Pansy of their grating fights in Potions class.

“And I’m sorry too,” she found herself saying. “For telling Rita Skeeter all of that stupid crap, for calling you a Mudblood and a slag in fourth year, for the Inquisitorial Squad, all of it. I don’t say this often, so savor it, but I was in the wrong.”

A light touched Granger’s eyes. Pansy was abruptly reminded of the night of the Yule Ball – pink roses blooming in her cheeks, her bushy hair turned into a set of gentle waves, wisps of forget-me-not blue robes spinning at the center of the room – and realized how far they’ve come.

“I’m still a bitch, though,” she shrugged, reaching into her bag and pulling out a pack of cigs. “Care for a fag?” She used to smoke with Draco by the Great Lake, in his room with the window open, at dingy fast food joints where they weren't Slytherin or popular or pure-blood scions.

Granger looked like she was torn between a battle of wills, but giving in eventually won. “Just one, thanks.”

“Really?” Pansy handed one over and scrutinized as she lit and placed the reddened stub between her lips with a fluid motion. “Why, why, why, I would _never_ have guessed. Always thought you were a good girl.”

“I’m not an addict, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Granger flushed. “It was just a little habit we got into last year, during the Horcrux hunt.”

“Who knows you have to blow off some steam while saving the world?” Pansy drawled, taking a drag. She watched as the narrow stream of smoke engaged in a swaying dance with Granger’s.

She felt a light kick against her shin under the table. When Pansy looked back at her, she saw the corners of her mouth twitch into a smile.


End file.
